Squash is the only non-endurance sport at Smith College where someone can participate without actually having played before – what a great opportunity to experience an important part of college life – intercollegiate athletics (50% of congress peeps played a varsity sport at college:).

The Smith College squash program is designed to develop smart, fit players as quickly as possible – the team does this better than any other college in the United States. Smith team members have won the Ann Wetzel Award more than any other team (two years ago Clair won the Award). The team has also been the top academic team both in the CSA and at Smith for the last several years: The average athlete GPA at Smith is higher than the GPA of non-athletes – there is something about participating in Athletics that allows students to do better academically.

What are the Steps to Come out for the Team?

Step 1: Show up and play at the Recreation Department’s Racquet Sports Night – it is held Wednesday evenings from 7-8:30 p.m. and this year is run by the squash team’s Carly Melillo. You can show up and leave at any time – you can play for 10 minutes or 2 hours. This is not a Smith Squash Team organized event – however, the facilitators are members of the team, and they can provide you with basic instruction (e.g., how to hold the racquet properly) that will allow you to progress to the point where you can tryout for the team. Your first step to learning how to play squash is to become competent at British Racketball – attempting squash before becoming good at racketball is actually detrimental to your development and will hinder your attempts to play for the team.

Step 2: After 2-3 visits to Racquet Sports Night, you may email coach Tim Bacon to express interest in coming out for the team. Tim will arrange to come down and watch you play/practice and will let you know if it will be realistic for you tryout – or whether you need more development.

Step 3: As mentioned above, squash is a very physical game and you need to be in shape. What sort of shape? The level of fitness required depends on your squash ability – the newer you are to the game, the fitter you have to be:

be able to run for 30 min. at a minimum 10 min./mile pace – ideally, you should be able to run 3 mi./5K in about 24-25 minutes.

be able to hold the plank position for a minimum of 30 sec. – both front and side.

The squash team’s pre-season workouts can be found here. Ideally, if you intend to come out for the team you need to be doing this training before joining the team.

Step 4. After you been approved by Tim to tryout for the team, you will need to complete some administrative forms before you can practice with the team. You must have had a full medical physical by a doctor in the previous six months, and provide written proof (i.e., a letter from your doctor mailed or faced to the Athletic Department).

Step 5. Squash practices start the week of October 28th: Monday to Thursday 4:30 to 6:45, and Fridays 4-6. After two weeks of “trying out” the team, you will be asked if you want to “commit” to the team for the the of the season. The season runs from Oct. 28th to December 10th, and then from Jan. 6th (interterm practices twice a day) to Feb.23rd. Attendance at all practices is mandatory except if you have an academic class – in which case you will make up the time by attending Racquet Sports night. Here is the link to last year’s schedule – this year’s will be similar competition schedule for the 2012-13 season.

Only 5-14% of U.S. High School girls will consider a women’s college. At Smith College there are many opportunities to meet boys – in class and out! There are 10,000 male 5-College students close to Smith College – Tim Loftus, a student from UMASS Amherst, who we see here in ESS110 – Intro to Sports Coaching, is one of them.

If you play squash and are considering a top academic college, why not choose the best of both worlds? Studies show that academic and leadership opportunities are great at a women’s college: at Smith you can also socialize with males!

The TRX by Fitness Anywhere is one of the latest and hottest training tools in use by professional athletes and teams – including 26 of the 30 N.B.A. teams! Thanks to a donation of several sets of TRXs from one of the father’s of a Smith student – he is VP of Marketing – the Smith Squash team has been using them to get fit and strong for the last two seasons.

The team’s sessions are supervised by Head Coach Tim Bacon, the only U.S. College coach who is a Certified Strength & Training Specialist. Tim has purchased and uses his own TRX Tactical Force Suspension trainer, and has given TRX workshops for both coaches and students. According to Bacon “The TRX saves our student-athletes so much time. Instead of having to make a trip up the the gym we just wrap our TRX around our squash court pillars and get to work!”.

The CSA Ann Wetzel Award was given on Saturday to the women’s college player who started playing squash at college – not even a single lesson or game is allowed in order to qualify for the award – Smith college’s Clair Oblamski!

Clair only actually played for two and a half semesters, making her achievement even more remarkable. She beat last year’s winner, Amherst’s Mimi Bell 3-0 just before her junior semester abroad in Denmark (where she had no access to squash courts). A captain on both the Smith College Tennis and Squash teams, Clair played won her first match at the #7 spot in the fall of 2009, and her last match at the #2 spot, leading her team to a 5-4 win over William Smith in the 2012 CSA Epps Cup final at Harvard University on February 26, 2012. More specific details on her progress can be found here. Here is a short interview with Clair after her first college squash match – at the end of her first week of squash:

Clair had beaten the second place nominee, Mount Holyoke College’s Marie Ozanne 3-1 at the Wesleyan Invitational in early December 2011.

Clair interned at StreetSquash in the summer of 2011, and although she is a CSA Scholar-Athlete and a double major in Neuroscience and Psychology, following graduation, she will be seeking a position with one of the NUSEA programs.

A historical note that Smith College has had more Ann Wetzel winners than any other college in the CSA since its inception in 1995:

1998: Karen Carniol (Wesleyan College)**

1999: Kanta Murali (Smith College)

2005: Ashley Kilgore (Smith College)

2006: Jennifer Recht (Smith College)

2012: Clair Oblamski (Smith College)

**Note that Smith’s Patty Jang, a 1998 nominee, did in fact beat the 1998 Wetzel Award winner according to CSA Ranking Rules (2-1 overall having won the most recent match), was a three-year co-captain of the squash team, and an exemplary sport with excellent technique (shot-maker style of play).**

Heading to Harvard by van on Thursday night, the Smith Squash team knew it was going to be a tough battle to win their Division at the 2012 CSA National Championships – the goal was to win the Epps Division and finish with a national ranking of 15.

The University of Virginia was first up at 11:00 a.m. on Friday – thankfully the match had been moved at the last minute from the 9:00 a.m. slot – nobody likes to get up at 6:00 in the morning! UVA fought hard but lost to a superior technical team. Smith #2 Clair Oblamski fought gamely to lose 11-2 in the fifth (we told her to lie down when it was clear we had won the match but she wouldn’t!), but could not overcome what turned out to be a severe chest and double ear infection: Smith 8 UVA 1. Both #7 Catie Blunt and #8 Elena Plesco came through to take their solid opponents in four games.

The Smith Squash Team had met Vassar College on three occasions prior to the Epps Semi-final at 9:00 in the morning on Saturday the 25th. The team’s last 5-4 win three weeks prior, featured seven matches that went four or five games and really could have gone either way. As in the last match it was the bottom of Smith’s line-up that saved the day – in particular #8 Elena Plesco’s reversal of her Seven Sister’s result with a gutsy 11-9 finish in the 5th! Clair was still struggling with breathing and #3 Krain almost cracked her opponent with a narrow 12-10 loss in the third: Smith 6 Vassar 3 – a reversal of the team’s opening result way back in November at the Guy Fawkes Challenge held at Vassar.

William Smith had won their last encounter with the Smith Squash Team by a score of 6-3 – but with four of the William Smith victories coming in four or five tough games – so the team definitely had a chance. The middle of William Smith’s line-up had changed with #6 Anne Habecker moving up to the #3 spot, and #4 and #5 shifting down. Habecker had beaten Smith #6 Jaimi Inskeep 3-1 at the Smith invitational, but she could not withstand the cool, tactical play of #4 Eunice Zhao who calmly stuck to her game plan to take the deciding ninth match in four games. A great win for Eunice as she had lost at the #4 spot to now #5 Leous Courtney in a very tight 8-11, 12-10, 11-7, 12-10 match – Courtney took Smith’s #5 Queenan (bad heel bruise) in 4 games in this final.

The second key match that turned the tide was Co-Captain #9 Szilvi Kiss’ match in the first round of play. With William Smith’s former #9 out of their line-up and WS’ Molly Doran moved up to replace her (Szilvi had lost to Molly earlier in the season), Szilvi came back from losing the first game to take it 3-1.

Highlights of this Year’s Howe Cup:

15th National ranking (Division III)! Up two spots from last year.

6 CSA Scholar-Athletes – more than any other team.

Clair Oblamski wins the Ann Wetzel Award – best college player who started squash at college.

For the second consecutive year (and also narrowly losing out to Brown in 2009-10) Smith College Squash is the top academic team in the CSA – this year with six scholar-athletes to the nearest opponent’s four (Brown, Harvard, Yale). To top it off, Smith College also won the Epps Division and their #2 player Clair Oblamski (also a CSA Scholar-Athlete) won the Ann Wetzel Award which goes to the top college player who started playing squash in college.

Both Catie and Xizhu have already been accepted to Harvard Graduate School (Chemistry and Engineering respectively) and Jami to Arizona State University (Environmental Science).

Just because you are smart and pretty good at squash does not mean you can’t have fun. Here is the team warming up with Dodgeball 5 min. before their Epps Division Final with William Smith (and yes – the eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted William Smith’s Ryan “MicroChip” Fishback).

This is the third and final publication of the Division III Women’s Squash Team rankings for the 2011-12 season. You can find the CSA Howe Cup final placing here and the rationale for publishing separate Division III rankings here.

A number of schools improved their end-of-season ranking by one position. A special shout-out to Wesleyan University (#10 to #8) and Williams College (#4 to #2) for moving up two spots by virtue of their play at the 2012 CSA Howe Cup Championships! All three of the CSA’s women-only colleges improved their ranking by one position during post-season play: Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Wellesley Colleges.